


Eye of the Beholder

by givemeunicorns



Series: MCU tumblr prompts [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Kid Fic, M/M, Multi, Tumblr Prompt, body issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-15 12:00:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2228253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/givemeunicorns/pseuds/givemeunicorns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky was only barely able to trust himself around their non super, non hero friends. But tiny little girls; he was not even in the general area of there yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eye of the Beholder

**Author's Note:**

> Done for the head canon prompt on tumblr
> 
> Anon asked: so my head canon is that Bucky is terrified of children. not because of how they are but because he is hyper aware of what he can do to trained adults, let alone kids.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own and i make no money off of this fic.

There were three of them. Three beautiful, dark skinned, curly headed little angels. And they scared the holy shit out of him.

Well not _them_ exactly but they're presence. Bucky was only barely able to trust himself around their non super, non hero friends. But tiny little girls; he was not even in the general area of there yet. Though to be fair he had agreed to it. Sam's sister and brother were out of town for a wedding, their babysitter falling through at the last minute. 

“I can go stay with them at the house,” Sam had said, looking at Bucky, “It's really no big deal, Buck, if you're not ready to have three little ones around.'

Bucky had just shrugged, played it cool. Truth be told it scared him shitless, but he hated watching Sam and Steve readjust their whole lives to accommodate his damage. He knew they knew that feeling, knew the weight of a survivors guilt but it didn't make him feel that way despite. Sam and Steve exchanged a glance.

“I'll stick to my rooms while they're here, so I won't scare them,” Bucky said, trying to place it off.

Sam reached across the table and caught Bucky's hand.

“It's not them I'm worried about. I know you won't hurt them. They're little girls, they've got no more reason to be afraid of you than of me or Steve. But if them being here is going to make you anxious or nervous, I can go there.”

Bucky smiled at him, at the honesty in the other man's dark eyes.

“Really Sam, it's fine. It's only a couple of days anyway. It'll be good for you chumps to have some one around who acts like you anyway,” he teased and Steve caught him a playful punch in the arm.

Now that they were here though, Bucky wasn't so sure he'd made the right call. They were just so  _small._

The oldest girl, Jada, made up for her miniscule size with her massive personality. She was eleven, she reminded Sam, which was close to being a teenager. She was no nonsense and bossy in a way that was both endearing and impressive in little girls. She spend fifteen minutes over pizza explaining to Steve that she had read a book about biology and decided she wanted to study tigers when she grew up. Steve listened with his. Bucky pitied any adult who told her she couldn't be anything that she wanted. 

What Jada possessed in personality, Tamara matched in energy. She was a nine year old whirlwind of bird like chatter and high pitched squealing. She roped Steve into her games of make believe early on, casting him as everything from the dragon to the knight to the pony. Sam rolled his eyes dramatically, claiming he was old news.

But he wasn't entirely idle. Malia, a doe eyed child of seven, had taken up near permanent residence on her uncle's lap, a ratty stuffed rabbit held close to her chest. She didn't say more than a few words, mostly answers to the questions she was asked or to ask her when her mom and dad were coming home.

Bucky watched them from a safe distance, close enough to let them know he was there, so he wasn't some just some strange man who lived in their uncle's house, but at the same time not so close that they were likely to engage him. Not that they would need to, not with Steve wrapped around their little fingers. Jada took a passing interest in his long hair, and Tamara twitted at him boldly when she brought him a slice of pizza. He tried to copy Steve and Sam's bright, open expression as he listened to her, but she quickly lost interest in him, gravitating back to the familiar comfort of Sam and Steve. He could have been a table lamp for all it mattered and he was rather all right like that.

He had volunteered to wash up the lunch dishes, letting Sam and Steve herd their them out in to the yard to play. Bucky felt like he could breath for the first time in hours. He knew he could just load the plates into the dish washer, but their was something relaxing about the repetitive motions.

His spine stiffened even before his brain made sense of why, his conditioned response to someone behind him kicking in.

He looked cautiously over his shoulder, to find little Malia standing there, clutching here bear and staring at him with same deer-in-headlights expression he was pretty sure was clear on his own face.

“Can I have some juice?” she asked, after a long moment, and Bucky shook himself out of his stupor. He could kill bad guys with one hand but he'd been incapacitated by a seven year old with a lisp.

“Oh, sure,” he said, offering her a small, awkward smile. She grinned back at him, which was oddly comforting, “What you like?”

“Can I have grape juice? In my pink cup please.”

Bucky nodded, fishing the pink plastic cup out of the drying rack, pouring her some juice from the fridge.

“What happened to your arm?”

Bucky froze, caught off guard by the query. There was no fear in the little girl's voice, just honest, childish curiosity It struck Bucky, rather suddenly, that no one had ever actually _asked_ him about it. He'd heard people talk. Stark and Banner had marveled at the design, Barton and Hill had been impressed by the strength and power it lent him. Thor took it as nothing, apparently metal limb were a possible thing on Asgard. Natasha was wary of it, but she was wary of him in general and he didn't blame her. Sam took it as a part of him, no questions asked. Steve did too, but Steve had also seen him fall. But no one had ever asked him the question, truth was he didn't really know. Just that when he woke up, the limb was gone.

He caught his lip between his teeth, thinking the answer over in his head. He still had a lot of baggage about the metal limb and she was just a little girl. He put the juice back in the fridge, knelt on the floor the way he'd seen Sam do, looking right into her questioning eyes. There was no fear or malevolence, just honest curiosity, as if she'd asked something as simple as why his hair was brown or why his shirt was black.

“I had and accident, a long time ago,” he said, rolling up his sleeve to the elbow, splaying his fingers and holding them out so she could see them better, “I got hurt. They couldn't fix my arm, so I got a new one.”

Her dark brows furrowed under her curls.

“ Can you feel anything with it?”

Bucky shrugged.

“Yes and no. I know I'm touching things, I can feel the weight of them in my hand. But I can't tell the texture very well, besides how had or soft something is. I cant tell how hot or cold things are.”

She took the information in, with the concentrate expression kids got when they were thinking very intently on something.

“Does it hurt?”

The words struck a cord in Bucky's chest, because it _did_ hurt sometimes. He'd never spoken about that, not even to Steve or Sam, because he knew the ache that woke him some nights wasn't real, that people who lost limbs sometimes forgot they'd lost them. He swallowed hard, then nodded.

“Some times, but it isn't real. Like when you think you have something crawling on you and there's nothing there. But most of the time, it's just like your arm. It works just the same, just a little noisier.”

She reached out tentatively, trailing tiny fingers across the places where the metal plates met. She grinned.

“It's warm,” the words hit Bucky like a punch in the chest. It wasn't real heat, he knew that, not created by the chemical reactions of a body staying alive, the heat come from the whirling mechanism within, that made the limb move like muscle and bone. But it didn't seem to matter much to Malia, as she looked at the smooth metal in fascination. It was different, but he'd forgotten that, in the eyes of children different wasn't anything but different. Bad or good was decided about how the object was presented to them. To Bucky, to everyone that knew his history, his name, the tool he'd once be forced to be, the arm was a symbol. Like nightmares, the rage, the moments of panic where he forgot his name, it was a even present reminder of what he'd endured, what he'd survived. He hated it, and yet he wouldn't have given it up for the alternative.

But to Malia, seven years old with the brightest eyes in the world, it was just an arm. Not like her own, but not dangerous, not something to be feared. Just metal and wires attached to a person she didn't know she shouldn't trust.

“It's pretty,” she beamed at him, “ Shiny. I like it. And if your fingers don't get cold, it must be really good for holding popsicles, or making snowballs. And you won't burn your fingers on the stove either.”

Bucky tried to swallow down the hard knot in his chest, and gave her a small, genuine smile.

“Thank you.”

She took a sip of her juice.

“Will you come play with me?” she asked, tucking her rabbit under one arm, and reaching her now free hand for his metal one.

“Of course.”

 


End file.
